As a technology for charging and replacing a battery of an electric vehicle is improved and the electric vehicle is popularized, the electric vehicle will gradually become a focus of Chinese automobile industry and energy development. Presently, an energy supply for the electric vehicle mainly includes: charging the battery and replacing the battery. The method for charging the battery has a disadvantage of a long waiting time. In terms of current development situation, in order to solve a problem of an endurance mileage of the electrical vehicle, the method for replacing the battery of the electrical vehicle is more feasible.
When a battery replacement for an electrical bus is performed, due to a limitation of a capacity of a single battery box, a combination of multiple battery boxes are generally used to supply electric power. However, the battery boxes are heavy and have a great quantity, and thus the replacement of the battery boxes is difficult. Therefore, the battery box replacement has become a technical problem of industrialization development of the electrical bus. In order to solve this technical problem, a system for fast replacing a battery box is required, which can replace all of battery cells in 7 to 8 minutes.
At present, domestic enterprises have researched on a system for replacing a battery box of an electrical bus to a certain extent.
Chinese Patent CN 101284524A provides a solution, which solves a problem of a battery box replacement by rotating the battery box by 180° through a battery replacement mechanism. However, this manner has disadvantages of long travel, large operating space, long operating time.
Some devices described in Chinese Patent 200820078476.7, titled “positioning device for battery replacement system of on-board battery”; and Chinese Patent 200410090796.0, titled “electrical bus system” have many problems in an implementation. For example, some design solution is just in a stage of theory, the process of positioning may be performed for many times in the battery box replacement, and the battery box replacement spends a long time. The battery replacement device has a poor expandability, i.e., battery boxes in different vehicles cannot be replaced by the same battery replacement device. In addition, a high of the related battery replacement device is limited, which cannot satisfy the requirement of a large-scale concentration type battery replacement station.
Chinese Patent CN 101890942A provides a device, which occupies a large area, and needs to cooperate with multiple robots or mechanisms to achieve the battery replacement.
Some progresses of the battery replacement device are provided in the existing technologies, but there are still some problems.
(1) Complex control, high failure rate and expensive maintenance cost.
In the existing technologies, the battery box is replaced through various robots and various structures, by performing the cooperation, the positioning and the repetition many times. In this way, this necessarily results in that the entire battery replacement system has a large coverage area, a high requirement for a positioning accuracy, a long operation time for the replacement, and a high complexity. The process of battery replacement may be implemented by complexly cooperating with various mechanisms, and thus the failure rate and the maintenance cost are correspondingly increased, which is adverse to promoting the electric vehicle.
(2) Long operation time for battery replacement, low battery replacement efficiency
The battery replacement robot can deliver and replace only one battery box at once, and the battery box to be replaced cannot be placed adjacent the battery replacement robot. In practice, the battery replacement robot has to move reciprocally between the battery box storage rack and the electric vehicle in which the battery replacement is to be replaced. With an extension of the travel of the robot, the operation time of the battery replacement is prolonged, thereby significantly reducing the battery replacement efficiency, and impeding the promotion of the electrical vehicle.
(3) In a solution in which multiple battery boxes are delivered at once, the battery replacement robot has a large weight and volume. The problems of how to control the battery replacement robot with a large inertia accurately and how to improve the reliability and efficiency of the battery replacement robot with a large weight cannot be solved by the existing technologies.